This Is the Moment to Remember that 30 Years Ago People Power Toppled a Dictator in the Philippines

Tom
Clifford is an Irish journalist. He has written for Japan Times,
Irish Independent, the South China Morning Post, Gulf News, the
Prague Post and many other publications.

The
past is another country. Two examples of People Power. The first in
1986 proved to be inspirational and led to the fall of a dictatorial
regime. The other, in 2016, saw the election of Rodrigo Duterte who
assumes office on June 30. Duterte's appeal is that he is not of the
establishment. His often crass comments seem to reinforce his
image as "one of the people". And therein lies the rub. Who
are the people? Were some of those who voted for him on the streets
of Manila thirty years ago? Were some of those who voted for him the
sons and daughters of those on the street thirty years ago? What did
happen in 1986, before the internet and mass communication?

In
common with the man who claimed he was their president, the mother
and her 10-year-old daughter were not leaving. The soldier at the
camp gate thanked them for the coconuts, pineapples and bottles of
water that she slipped through the iron grilles. “It will be
appreciated by the soldiers inside,” he said.

The
items handed over, the mother came up to me, holding her daughter by
the hand, and introduced herself. The soldier, she told me in English
with a Tagalog lilt, had said we should go as orders had probably
been given for the tanks to come and seize the camp.

On
that Saturday night of February 22nd, 1986, I was desperate to go
somewhere safer. Then something incredible happened, though I am
still not sure if it was a supreme moment of love or a criminal
abdication of parental duty.

The
girl took her hand from her mother’s and announced loudly: “No,
we stay.” Her mother agreed and then challenged me as to what I
would do.

“Stay,”
I replied, with a confidence I did not feel. But I was not going to
lose face to a 10-year-old.

History
records that thousands did turn up to back the soldiers who were
demanding that Ferdinand Marcos relinquish power. But that night, in
the first stirring of the protest that was to take its name from
Edsa, the 12-lane highway separating the two military camps that
hosted the mutinous soldiers, just 30 or so people had gathered
outside the gate.

Two
former proteges of Marcos had gone to the camps after a public split
with the Philippine president that afternoon. Juan Ponce Enrile,
Marcos’s justice minister, had taken over Camp Aguinaldo, and Fidel
Ramos, vice chief of staff, was across the road in Camp Crame.

Fewer
than 300 soldiers were in both camps. The vast majority of the armed
forces were with Marcos. Bloodshed under the moonlight was a more
likely outcome than Marcos leaving.

I
had arrived in Manila in January. Breda Noonan, my aunt from
Limerick, was a Columban missionary. She had arranged for me to stay
in Singalong, the location of the principal house of the Columbans in
Manila. There I met the mostly Irish priests and nuns who were based
in communities throughout the country. Their energy, courage and
dedication was inspirational.

I
was on my way to Mindanao to spend time with Fr Marcus Keyes from
Cork and Fr Frank Nally from Mayo. Both were living the gospel,
bearing witness and helping those without a voice, especially in the
struggle against illegal logging and land-grabbing. The priests and
nuns all had legitimate reasons to fear for their welfare in the
Philippines of Marcos, but concerns expressed for their safety were
brushed off.

The
snap election and swift revolution 30 years ago blew down the house
of cards that was the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. The images were
astounding. Thousands of people on the streets, flower-power
protesters stopping tanks dead in their tracks, the widow of an
assassinated politician, a “saint” of democracy in a devoutly
Catholic country, leading the faithful to the promised land.

Oh,
and hundreds of shoes. The People Power revolution that reached its
zenith from February 22nd-25th was colorful, inspirational,
passionate, brutal and bizarre, and dominated global headlines.

Imelda
Marcos’s penchant for expensive footwear, in a land where most
people wore sandals or flip-flops, seemed to sum up just how far
removed the first couple were from those they misruled.

But
the Philippine people did not take to the streets to protest against
high heels, platforms, or slip-ons. It was often referred to as a
bloodless revolution, but it was far from that. In the two decades
since Marcos had come to power, thousands had been killed by his
ill-disciplined security forces and frighteningly disciplined death
squads, as well as by the corruption that caused malnutrition to
stalk one of the most bountiful countries in the world.

According
to the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, conducted by the
Philippine Statistics Authority spanning 1965-1985, (the Marcos
years), those classified as living in poverty rose from 41 per cent
to 58.9 per cent. The economy shrank by more than 10 per cent in
1984-85.

In
the ornate surrounds of Malacanang palace, Marcos seemed oblivious to
the chaos of his rule. Even during the heady days leading up to the
people’s revolt in in February, hundreds were killed away from the
spotlight of the world’s media cameras panning the crowds in
Manila.

In
the slums of the capital, on the island of Mindanao and elsewhere on
the archipelago, bodies bearing the signs of torture were retrieved
from rivers, ditches, fields and rubbish dumps. The dead – regime
opponents, rights activists, young women – were referred to
chillingly as “salvaged”, shorthand for their remains being
salvaged for identification and burial.

No
one doubted that Marcos would win the snap election he called for
February 7th. He was a dictator, and no dictator ever worth his salt
lost an election. But Marcos, who came to power as a reformer (an
expedient moniker for many dictators) before declaring martial law in
1972 to extend his rule, as it turned out, was not worth his salt.

The
election, with its de rigueur vote-rigging and obvious signs of fraud
in the counting, was of course a farce. Marcos declared himself the
winner against Cory Aquino, who did not accept the result.
Irresistible force meets immovable object. Washington attempted to
mediate by sending a special envoy, but Marcos was determined to
tough it out.

Aquino’s
husband Benigno, a former senator and scion of a land-owning family,
had been assassinated as he alighted from a plane at Manila airport
in 1983 to end his exile in Boston and launch a serious challenge to
Marcos.

Benigno
“Ninoy”Aquino did challenge the dictator, albeit from the grave.
No one doubted Marcos was behind the killing. The baton had been
passed to his widow, who had clearly won the election. Marcos,
however, was not going anywhere.

Then
came the unexpected. Enrile and Ramos switched sides with the
blessing of Washington, the real power broker in Philippine politics.

Well,
part of Washington. President Ronald Reagan had been a friend of
Marcos and a frequent visitor to Manila since he was governor of
California. To Reagan, Marcos was a good “son of a bitch” for the
US, and the president initially refused point-blank to congratulate
Cory Aquino. (That lasted until she visited the US, as president of
the Philippines, to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress
in September 1986.)

In
January and February 1986, high-profile US politicians, senators and
congressmen, were arriving in droves to gauge the situation from the
air-conditioned coffee shops and plush hotels or be taken in convoy
to the palace. The US had major military bases at Subic Bay (navy)
and Luzon Island (air force).

This
was a particularly chilly time in the cold war and from Washington’s
perspective Marcos was someone dependable. There was also a feeling
in Washington that, as the US had already “lost” Vietnam,
Cambodia, Nicaragua and Iran, the 7,000 islands of the Philippines
had to remain within its fold.

The
Philippines had always seemed to attract the interests of
superpowers. In 1521, the country was discovered by Magellan and
became a Spanish colony. In the Spanish-American war of 1898, the
victorious US took control of the entire country – one of the
largest ever spoils of war.

Filipinos
were increasingly angry at Washington’s preference for Marcos and
his regime, the brutality of which was fuelling the left. You could
sense the resentment. The great Philippine singer Freddie Aguilar was
drawing crowds to hear him sing the resistance song Bayan Ko at the
cramped Hobbit House in Manila (frequented by foreign journalists)
and other, bigger venues.

The
raised forefinger and stretched thumb, an “L” indicating support
for Aquino’s Laban party, was a form of greeting. The Catholic
Church, the great institution of the Philippines, was split between
conservatives and those more sympathetic to liberation theology.

The
New People’s Army was gaining ground. Recruits and some strategists
claimed they had an island-hopping plan to seize power. The country,
it seemed, was up for grabs. Marcos had asked his aides to compare
his coverage in the US media to that of the Shah before he fell. The
more front-page stories, the greater the threat to the regime, Marcos
believed. In that at least he was prescient.

Then
Ramos and Enrile took refuge at Crame and Aguinaldo. In Spanish, the
Edsa highway is called Abenida Epifanio de los Santos, or Epiphany of
the Saints Avenue. An appropriate name – the Philippines was going
through a political epiphany.

On
February 22nd, as Ramos and Enrile set up camps (the latter would
move to Crame on February 23rd to consolidate their position), rumor
and counter-rumor swirled. The army was going to attack. The air
force was loading planes with bombs. Helicopters would blitz the
camps. Tanks were massing to crush the protesters. But nothing
happened, Marcos had lost the opportunity to strike hard and, as dawn
broke on Sunday, the mood had changed. The long night over, now the
crowds came, after the morning masses and the sermons of defiance.

Marcos
was told that Enrile and Ramos would themselves initiate military
action (a false rumor; they did not have the manpower) and sent tanks
onto the street to pre-empt any breakout. Then came the “miracle of
Edsa”, with protesters kneeling in front of tanks and young women
offering flowers to soldiers.

From
that moment, Marcos began to hemorrhage support. Helicopters did
land, but they joined the rebellion. The fear factor, essential to
any dictator, had dissipated.

During
the night of February 22nd, Cory Aquino, deeply mistrustful of Enrile
and Ramos because she feared they were planning to seize power,
stayed in the Carmelite monastery on the island of Cebu. The next day
she flew back to Manila, where she gained the initiative. Marcos
negotiated safe passage for himself and his cronies to Hawaii.

The
revolution, though certainly compromised, deserves to be recognized
as a pivotal moment in Asian history. Vested interests, the church,
the armed forces, big business and cold-war real politick may have
diluted it, but it was better than it might have been. The army did
not take power as it wanted to and tried to later. There were at
least six coup attempts against the Aquino government. But since she
stepped down at the end of her term in 1992, four presidents have
been elected – including her son, who will step down in June.

Did
it inspire? Certainly. Both Myanmar and China subsequently saw
thousands of students on the street. Their protests were crushed, but
Europe saw a different outcome in 1989 as the Berlin Wall came
tumbling down.

There
is little doubt that at least some of the protesters were emboldened
by what they saw and heard about events in Manila, 30 years ago now.
That cannot be said of events in 2016 that saw the election of a
populist who seems comfortable threatening the media, jokes
about rape and is even considering offering the son of Marcos a
cabinet position. I do not believe, as Marx said that history repeats
itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. At times, it just seems that
way.